


our own share of miseries

by wave_of_sorrow



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: First Kiss, Food Sharing, M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-10
Updated: 2012-05-10
Packaged: 2017-11-05 02:28:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/401448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wave_of_sorrow/pseuds/wave_of_sorrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Tony likes to share his food with Bruce, communication isn't really anybody's strong suit, and then there's sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	our own share of miseries

_Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?_  
Thomas Jefferson

The first time it’s a bag of dried blueberries, offered when he agrees with Tony about Fury’s secrets having secrets. The earnest brown puppy eyes do nothing to dispel the feeling that he’s a dog being given a treat and a pat on the head. He takes them anyway, if only because a) it would be rude not to, and b) he’s too startled by Stark sharing snacks with him to say no.

It gets him a broad grin as Tony watches him chew, and by the time Bruce has stopped wondering what the hell he’s waiting for Tony’s attention is already on Steve.

From then on Tony constantly brings Bruce food, like somewhere between the little bag being held out to him and grabbing a handful Bruce said _please do this more often_ and, granted, he’s not always aware of just what he’s doing, but he thinks he’d remember that.

It’s half a sandwich pushed towards him across the worktop, and when he looks up he finds Tony sitting cross-legged on the table and nudging the plate a little closer to him as he takes huge bites out of his own half and chews obnoxiously. It’s a cup of coffee that he grabs blindly as he tries to make sense of the readings they’re getting, and it’s not until Tony steals it back after he’s taken a sip that Bruce realizes he was offered Tony’s cup.

It’s a donut wrapped in a paper serviette and presented with a quicksilver, eye-crinkling smile, and Bruce is starting to wonder whether maybe his original assessment of Tony using food as a substitute for _good boy_ was wrong. Maybe plying him with food is the new poking him with sharp objects, though how getting fat is meant to make him lose control he’s not sure.

Then the world almost ends, and with the Other Guy taking over for a bit Bruce forgets all about it.

~*~

Saving the world calls for food, and lots of it. They have burgers and fries right in the rubble that is the lower levels of Stark Tower with the air blowing in through the smashed windows, and no one thinks to ask how the fuck Tony managed to get it delivered when half of Manhattan’s been destroyed.

Bruce is looking for somewhere to sit and Tony calls him over and makes room for him on the large cushion he’s sitting on. Bruce thinks it might once have been part of a couch, but drops down next to Tony anyway.

Tony pushes his plate of fries closer to him, scraping it across the broken glass strewn across the floor, and he says, “Thanks for, you know, saving my life.”

It’s said with sincerity and no trace of a smile, and there’s dried blood and dirt smeared over Tony’s face like he tried to wipe it off with sweaty hands and then decided it was a lost cause, and Bruce has no idea what to say. Tony’s still looking at him, though, like he’s waiting for something, and for lack of anything better to do Bruce grabs some fries.

Tony’s grin is wide and pleased, and he takes a big bite out of his second burger, seemingly satisfied. He’s still grinning as he chews, and Bruce wonders whether all those times he offered him food Tony wasn’t so much saying _good boy_ as wanting to hear it.

~*~

By the end of the next day the excitement’s died down, all that’s left is the cleanup work, and most of the Avengers have scattered. Bruce only came to say goodbye to Tony, but he thinks he should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

“Or you could stay,” Tony says, one of his arms looped around Pepper’s waist and nudging a bowl of fresh blueberries across the bar. Bruce grabs a handful and eats them, and Pepper excuses herself to check on the repairs going on in the background with a barely suppressed smile. “I did promise I’d show you all my cool toys.”

Bruce rubs the back of his neck and shrugs awkwardly. “Uh, thanks, but we both saw what happened the last time I was in a confined space.”

“So?” Tony manages to turn it into a five-syllable word, and looks at Bruce like he just said the stupidest thing in the world.

His eyes are drawn to the deep gouges in the floor, and he knows that’s where the Hulk slammed Loki into the ground. “Aren’t you worried I’ll, I don’t know, tear your lab apart?” Bruce asks, and reflexively grabs more blueberries when they’re nudged at him again.

Tony rolls his shoulder in an exaggerated, one-armed shrug and pulls a face. “Meh,” he says, and Bruce doesn’t think that’s even a word.

Pepper comes back over and steals a blueberry from Tony’s hand. “I can show you to your room now, if you like,” she tells Bruce with the wind whipping her hair around her face. “And if there’s anything you need, just say the word.”

“Uh,” Bruce says, and Pepper makes a little _oh_ noise of comprehension.

“We hadn’t actually gotten to the part where he agrees yet,” Tony tells her, and then turns to Bruce as he says, “but let’s just skip to where you do and then I can, like, totally blow your socks off with all the fancy gadgets I have.”

Bruce gapes and tries to find something to say, and Tony just winks and shoves a handful of blueberries into Bruce’s open mouth.

“That’s a yes,” he tells Pepper as Bruce tries not to choke and, okay, maybe this is the new poking him with sharp objects.

~*~

When Pepper finds them in Tony’s lab they’re sitting on the floor with blueprints and the odd spare part scattered between them and holographic maps spinning around them in strange patterns. Tony’s mouth is going a mile a minute and Bruce is nodding and throwing in remarks, their hands brushing as they share each other’s personal space. When she clears her throat and they look up they knock their heads together.

Bruce curses and Tony laughs, and Pepper tries not to smile as she holds out the phone to him. “For you,” she says, and then, “It’s important.”

“I don’t want to,” Tony pouts and turns his best puppy eyes on her.

Pepper raises an eyebrow at him and after a brief stare contest Tony takes the phone with as much whining as possible. Bruce almost expects him to start stomping his foot like a three year old.

“He’s not good at saying things, you know,” Pepper says, and watches Tony disappear through the glass doors to take the call.

“Sorry?” Bruce says, looking up at her from the blueprints.

“Tony,” Pepper says, and leans her hip against a desk. “For all that he never shuts up he never actually says anything.” She picks up a wrench, turns it over in her hand and drops it again with a sigh. “I guess he doesn’t really know how to express things with words. He much prefers gestures.”

Bruce looks at her like he has no idea what she’s trying to tell him, and then the doors open and Tony says, “Please don’t stop talking about me on my account.”

Pepper rolls her eyes and smiles at Bruce, and when Tony hands the phone back to her she exchanges it for a bar of chocolate she pulls out of her pocket. “Good boy,” she says, and Tony preens.

He drops back onto the floor next to Bruce, breaks off half of the chocolate and hands Bruce that bit that’s still in the wrapper. He meets Pepper’s eyes over the top of Tony’s head and they share one of those strange, strange moments of complete understanding.

Then Tony’s elbowing him in the ribs and demanding attention, and Pepper leaves them to it.

~*~

“You really don’t have to go, you know,” Tony says, and Bruce knows what he actually means is _I don’t want you to go._

“I know,” Bruce says, and he does.

Tony crosses his arms across his chest and leans back against the bar. This part of Stark Tower at least has been completely repaired, and through the glass fronts Bruce can see night falling over the ruins of Manhattan.

“You’re still worried you’ll lose it and tear this place apart,” Tony says.

“Yeah,” Bruce says, because it’s easier to just agree than explain what’s really going on.

Tony chuckles and says, “You’re such a liar.”

Bruce looks at him, and smiles ruefully, and hates Tony a little for getting it. “Look,” he says, and rubs a hand over his face, “you’ve got your own,” he gestures vaguely, “things. You don’t need me adding mine to that.”

Tony steps forward and right into Bruce’s personal space, puts his hands on his shoulders and squeezes, and says, “Everyone’s fucked up. Some of us more than others, but we’ve all got demons. Get the fuck over it.”

“Know many people who turn into gigantic green monsters on a regular basis, do you?” Bruce says, and the room is dark, the only illumination the dull glow of the city and a bit of light filtering through Tony’s shirt.

Tony laughs, and then turns serious again, his hands sliding up to interlock behind Bruce’s neck, thumbs rubbing the sides in a way that makes Bruce want to shudder and sigh. Tony leans in until their noses bump and they’re breathing each other’s air, and he says, “You have twelve seconds to give me a valid reason why this isn’t a good idea.”

“I did mention the bit where I could turn into a monster and tear you to shreds, yeah?” Bruce says, and it comes out nervous and rushed.

“Yeah,” Tony murmurs against his mouth, and then, “Time’s up.”

Tony kisses like he does everything else: madly and passionately and with almost painful intensity. Bruce has the strangest feeling that he’s had this coming ever since he accepted a handful of dried blueberries at an uncomfortably high altitude.

He figures he might as well give in now, and wraps his arms around Tony, their teeth knocking together painfully as they try to get a better angle. Their breaths come in short, forceful bursts between them and Tony grunts as he’s pushed back into the bar and pinned there. One of his hands trails down from Bruce’s neck to the front of his pants, and he presses the heel of it against the hard cock beneath.

Bruce tenses, and Tony breaks the kiss to whisper, “Relax, you’re not going to lose it.” Tony chuckles, low and dirty, and nips at his jaw. “Well, not like that anyway.”

Bruce means to say something, like _you don’t know that_ , or _what if I do_ , but the tongue that’s shoved into his mouth turns the words into a garbled moan. He pushes his hips forward and Tony gasps and curses and takes his hand off Bruce’s erection in favour of pulling him in by the belt loops.

The rhythm they find is hard and erratic, a messy bump and grind, and Bruce thinks he could come from that alone as Tony groans into his mouth and bites his tongue. He shoves a knee between Tony’s thighs and Tony throws his head back and rubs himself against it.

“Shit,” he hisses when Bruce wraps a hand around the back of his neck, fingers digging into the tightly wound muscles, and then, when Bruce bites his salty neck, “Oh. _Oh_ , fuck.”

Tony arches, and shudders, and goes limp. He’s sprawled back against the bar, sluggish and heavy in Bruce’s arms, and his hips twitch lazily a few more times.

“Did you just…?” Bruce asks, breathless and wide-eyed, and Tony just hums and stretches like a sun-warmed cat.

Then he drops to his knees, tears open Bruce’s pants and takes his cock into his mouth. Bruce gasps, and hunches forward, his hands curling into fists against the top of the bar as Tony takes him all the way in and sucks, then pulls back to rasp his tongue over the head. Bruce’s hips buck and Tony reaches up to uncurl one of his hands and directs it to his head instead.

Bruce makes a wordless noise that seems to communicate the distress he’s feeling, because Tony’s eyes flutter open as he takes him in again, and his thumb rubs over Bruce’s exposed hipbone. Tony bobs his head until Bruce’s hand starts taking over, moving Tony’s head up and down on his cock rather than moving his own hips.

Tony’s jaw is slack and the obscenely wet sounds of Bruce fucking his mouth are interspersed with deep groans from Tony and gasps from Bruce. When he comes, Bruce panics, and he pulls out and shoots on Tony’s face instead.

He wants to apologise, but he can’t seem to catch his breath, and Tony just grins, his teeth glittering in the semi-darkness. He licks a bit of come from the corner of his mouth as Bruce slides to the floor next to him, then hops up to get a glass of water.

He takes off his shirt as he goes and wipes his face with it, and the light from the Arc reactor suffuses everything with a blue glow. Bruce watches him toss the shirt away as he plops back down next to him, takes a few gulps of water and then offers the rest to Bruce.

“Pepper says I need to put things into words more,” Tony says, and Bruce swallows.

“Okay,” he says slowly, and when he puts the empty glass down on the floor it sounds terribly loud.

“I like you,” Tony says, and Bruce just blinks at him. “I mean, you know, you’re, like—“

Bruce kisses him before the babbling can start in earnest. “I like you, too.”

Tony grins, impossibly wide and delighted, “Awesome. Let’s fuck.”

Bruce rubs a hand over his face and laughs. “I assume telling you I could lose control and split you in half won’t do anything to dissuade you?”

“That’s kinda the whole point of the exercise,” Tony tells him with a leer and a wink, and Bruce just gives up.

“Guess that means I’m staying,” Bruce mumbles as he’s pulled to his feet and down the corridor to Tony’s bedroom.

~*~

When Pepper brings them lunch the next day to where they’ve been holed up in the lab all day it’s a sandwich cut in half, set on plate between them. Bruce thanks her, and Tony hums in acknowledgement as he chews, and she barely resists the urge to pat their heads. 


End file.
